


through touch alone

by hxh



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hxh/pseuds/hxh
Summary: For over a century, she had dreamt of this woman, and now, a century later, she had finally found her.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	through touch alone

**Author's Note:**

> i havent read the comics yet, so this is all based on the movie canon

She had dreamt of this woman.

For over a century, this woman had whispered to her in dreams, kept her company through her nightmares; her presence was a weight on Andromache’s soul. She felt like she knew this woman so intimately; she could pick her out in a sea of figures, she could find her gaze within a swarm of eyes, she could know her through touch alone.

For over a century, she had dreamt of this woman, and now, a century later, she had finally found her.

Her eyes burned, holding secrets of countless nights spent underneath the stars, dreaming of the same thing Andromache had searched tirelessly for. Someone who could go into battle alongside her, and come out unscathed on the other side. Someone who could know her so intimately, ‘understanding’ couldn’t even begin to encompass it. Someone meant to meet Andromache as an equal; someone to share the burden that immorality was.

Introductions were thrown aside—after all, what’s the point if you already know? 

__

The years were not kind to the pair, but they forged on, each night silently thanking whatever celestial beings out there for the gift that was each other.

Centuries passed them by; battles won, battles lost, lives saved, lives forgotten. It could have gotten tedious after a while, except nothing was repetitive about the way Andromache felt a fire ignite under her skin at every soft touch, whispered word, or shared glance from her lover. On certain nights, when Quynh’s ever-near presence made the bonfire inside of her feel so tangible, so bright—this wouldn’t be a bad way to die, after all, she thought.

__

It was the fourth night of this. They had split up this time; Quynh and her had taken this town, while Nicolo and Yusuf had moved on to the next, all of them trying to save the dozens of women from unjust deaths. Except this time, suspicion had chosen to follow them back to their lodgings. They had been captured in the dark of the night, caught unawares after a sweet moment spent together. Shoved in a dank cell no wider than Andromache’s scythe, they were to be subjected to another trial of burning tomorrow morning.

The door opened, except this time, there was more light than usual. Ten men, each holding pitchforks and knives and fire, and the priest. This man who knew nothing, only fearing what force and intimidation could not quell. His breath stank up close; Andromache kept a straight face.

He smiled nastily, “You two are too powerful together.”

Andromache felt her stomach drop, fear surging up to meet her for the first time in what felt like forever. At the same time, four men came forward and grabbed Quynh, restraining her from lashing out. Bright light assaulted their eyes—they had raised the wall, and were dragging a screaming Quynh out into the open, where an iron—

No. No, no no. Andromache’s body moved of its own accord, she felt her arms pulling from their sockets, the pain hardly registering. Not sparing a glance for the priest, she felt herself screaming Quynh’s name, begging, ‘No! you can’t do this! No, please, please take me instead! Please, don’t do this. Quynh!’ 

Her words fell on uncaring ears. Quynh was shoved into the coffin, feet kicked out beneath her. The lid was closed, and Quynh’s eyes frantically met her own as it was dragged backwards through the crowd.

Andromache was still screaming as the wall descended back down, separating her from her other half.

__

One hundred years, and nothing, still. Andromache could still recall like it was yesterday the terror in Quynh’s eyes as she was forced into a future that did not smile kindly upon those of immortal blood.

She had lain waste to the village after Nicolo and Yusuf had found her. She hadn’t meant to kill innocents, and while she didn’t go out of her way to raze the place to the ground, any man or woman who had come across her path was obliterated. How could innocence even matter when they had all carelessly watched as the woman she had spent over two _millennia_ with was stolen right in front of her eyes?

__

There was another immortal. Sebastien, he was called, and he dreamt of Quynh. She didn’t know if it was luck or misfortune that spared her the constant visions of her dearest drowning, over and over. What did it matter—she still dreamt of her anyways.

__

Quynh had started the blur around the edges. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but whenever she thought about her, sometimes in bursts, and sometimes after long periods of purposeful absentmindedness, there was a haze about her.

Her hair changed shape, sometimes it was short, sometimes it was longer, sometimes it was more black, sometimes more blue. The pitch of her voice was inconsistent, sounding too throaty, or too sweet. Her hands became indistinct, her fighting style shifted incongruently with the time period, her smile always looked as if viewed from changing orientations.

But the one thing that never changed were her eyes. They stilled burnt as brightly as the day that Andromache had first met her, back in that desert all those millennia ago. Andromache could still pinpoint exactly how her eyes looked.

__

She had given up, she told Nile while they were sitting against the car. The look the other woman had given her wasn’t pitying, though it came from the same family. Something more akin to sorrow, not for Quynh, but for Andromache herself, living with the knowledge of breaking a promise to someone who meant so much to her.

__

Andromache knew that voice. She recognized that mouth, those hands, the graceful way she carried herself as she incapacitated both Booker and Nicky in one fell swoop.

She looked good, she thought offhandedly. Her hair was shorter now, more sleek, but lacking the straightened quality modern technology affords. Her clothing suited her, complimenting the tanned, healthy glow about her. Her eyes were lined, accentuating those eyes that Andromache still dreamt of, night after night.

Nile and Joe stood in front of her, shielding her now fragile body from the woman currently aiming a crossbow directly at her.

“Quynh?”

“Been a long time, Andromache. How’s it going?”

**Author's Note:**

> second chapter will be up soon! thanks for reading


End file.
